Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan was a French engineer who worked in Poland between 1630 and 1647. He built fortifications in Ukraine, most of which was then under Polish control, took part in battles with the Cossacks and Tatars, and in 1639 traveled by boat down the Dnieper (Dnipro, in Ukrainian) River. Beauplan produced two important early maps of Ukraine that were based on his own observations and his own careful astronomical and topographic measurements. His map of 1648, shown here, includes detailed information about the border areas, including Tatar ...